Insights on beer marketing & PR by a beer-war vet

Stainless steel is pretty boring. But beer lovers should celebrate it because it redefined beer markets around the world. It created kegs that allowed beer brands to spread.

Okay – less boring: these kegs mean we now have a greater – indeed global – choice of tap beers. Beers that stay fresher, longer.

Beerlines celebrated this recently, as the two photos below reveal.

Pic one: Famous German brews, Fischer’s Stiftungsbräu and Bitburger, outside Claypots Evening Star restaurant in the South Melbourne market. Pic two: Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA from California waiting to be rolled into the cellar at the Royston Hotel: renowned craft-beer pub in Richmond Melbourne.

Two German brews in South Melbourne

Torpedo waits at the Royston in Richmond

Kegs defined beer markets
Brewery market catchments used to be a lot smaller. That’s because they were mainly defined by the transportability of wooden kegs like the old firkins and kilderkins.

Despite improving transport, too many bumps and thumps meant air getting in the cracks past the lining of brewers’ pitch and ruining the beer.

In Australia, the growth of state-based brewing giants like Castlemaine Perkins, Tooheys, Swan and CUB ties in with the shift from wooden to steel kegs.

XXXX Bitter Ale for example could never go too far from its home in the south east corner of Queensland. With new steel kegs popular capital-city brands extended across their states and, as often happened, bumped off smaller regional breweries along the way.

Dozens of small breweries closed.

Enough of the downside: With the benefit of improved kegs, like the DIN or Euro kegs, we can now delight in draughts brews from anywhere.

Although .. while beerlines delights in trying these famous international brews on tap, it would be great to see more local (and most likely much fresher) craft brews also available on tap.